From Deseret News archives:
Hot Rod's TV career coming to a close
When the Jazz end their season at Golden State on Wednesday, the KJZZ-Ch. 14 telecast will be the last for Hundley — the only play-by-play man the Jazz have ever had in their 31-year history.
(He will, however, continue as the radio voice of the Jazz on KFNZ-AM 1320.)
Chances are, not much of anybody will be watching Hundley's TV swan song. Not surprisingly, ratings for the Jazz have gone in the dumper as this long, losing season has worn on.
For example, last Saturday's game (a Jazz loss to the Mavericks) drew an anemic 3.0 rating on Ch. 14. Which was somewhat embarrassing, given that the local telecast of the Real Salt Lake soccer match with the Los Angeles Galaxy drew a 3.2 rating on KSL-Ch. 5.
(Frankly, that RSL number is a bit of a surprise. A 3.2 for the team's second local telecast after a 3.0 for the first is far better than most anybody was expecting.)
To put the Jazz's 3.0 in perspective, the team was regularly attracting ratings 10 times that high back when they were winning. When the Jazz were playing in the NBA Finals in '97 and '98, they were easily garnering ratings 20-25 times that high.
Amazing what a few dozen losses will do, huh?
Through it all, Hundley has been the same guy uttering the same phrases the same way. And there have always been two ways to look at that. You can be annoyed by his constant use of redundancies (like "young rookie") and the same pat phrases.
Or you can feel somewhat comforted by the familiarity of his delivery — the sportscasting equivalent of comfort food.
I'm choosing to go with option B.
GOOD DECISION: With absolutely no offense intended in any way, shape or form to Hundley, the Jazz splitting their TV and radio broadcasts next season is a move that's long overdue.
Radio requires a more descriptive play-by-play than TV, for obvious reasons. And it should make for a better radio broadcast as well, because we'll never have to listen while Hundley and color commentator Ron Boone tell us to look at the replay with them again.
I've tried looking at the radio. It doesn't work.
GOOD CHOICE: I have great confidence in Craig Bolerjack's abilities as the new local TV voice of the Jazz beginning next season. He's proven himself to be a solid play-by-play guy both locally and nationally over the past couple of decades.
(Hey, it's been a loooong time since he referred to BYU as "B-U-Y" during a football telecast. So long ago that the Cougars were actually a winning, respected program.)
It will be interesting to see, however, if Bolerjack runs into the same problem with some Jazz fans that he ran into with some BYU basketball fans — or, at least, then-Cougar coach Roger Reid — nearly a decade ago when he was accused of not being pro-BYU enough.
Hundley has always been a major homer. Even though Bolerjack will be a Jazz employee next season, I'm betting he won't be.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com
